


aftershocks

by hapful



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Past minor character death, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapful/pseuds/hapful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part 1 - Wendy thinks about family in the wake of it all.</p>
<p>part 2 - Fiddleford seeing Stan for the first time after everything and all the shit Stan's blank look brings.</p>
<p>part 3 - Gideon sleeps and dreams about screaming.</p>
<p>Just a collection of <s>melodrama</s> picking up the pieces after the finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part 1

Wendy thinks a lot about family when the dust settles.

She thinks about what things were before, not before _this_ disaster but before _that_ disaster, when one day her mother didn’t come home and she was the woman of the house. She thinks about how she didn’t know what being the ‘woman’ of the house meant, she wasn’t even sure she knew what being a woman meant. Her mother must have told her years ago, days ago, hours ago, before she was gone for good. 

Wendy knows how to punch, how to fight, how to hold things back, but not how to be warm, or how to be soft, and wasn’t that what a woman was?

So _that_ disaster, she’s pretty sure it ruined the woman she was supposed to be. Her brothers were far too young to remember, it made things easier for them. You couldn’t really miss what you never had, not like her. She missed what she used to have every day.

So _that_ disaster redefined family, because suddenly her daddy was her dad, and suddenly her mom was a corpse and suddenly she was her mom and the oldest and she had to be soft and hard and everything in between. So _that_ disaster took a bite out of warmth and left them all drafty. So it showed her the sort of person she needed to be to survive.

So _that_ disaster made her tired, made her angry, made her push down all the things she was into an ugly mess. So _that_ disaster made her hate her dad a little bit each holiday, each time he’d take to teaching them how to hunt/fight/survive rather than letting them bask in something warm for once. So _that_ disaster taught her family was a burden, a struggle, something to harden yourself for so you could be what they needed you to be.

 

\-- their faces were grey on the screen, and for a minute she thought how weird was this, how did Shaundra Whoever with her crew of whoever manage this and how did a person even become stone and how did her father let this happen when all he ever taught them to do was survive and how could she have not been cool hard strong enough to stop this and how --

 

So _this_ disaster changed everything again, she thinks. Her whole body hurts, especially where her father and family squeezed her tight when they weren’t so grey anymore, and she’s too coolhardstrong to let it bother her but maybe it does, maybe a little. Out there in the wastes, what was the town and became the wastes and was the town again, out there she didn’t flinch because it was a waste of a few seconds. She crawled up from the wreckage of a car and Soos was there and warm worried _soft_ like he always was. Dipper was small and trying to stand tall and he looked at her, looks at her, like she was so cool and hard and strong and maybe she does like it, maybe it’s not so bitter, maybe he was right.

She sees her father again now, the softness in how he holds them looks at them touches them. She thinks about a young man with a young family, afraid of losing anyone else. She thinks of that young man doing everything to make sure they’re ready, safe, prepared for what life will throw because he wasn’t there for _her_ and he can’t always be there for _them_ and maybe, just maybe, maybe if he can teach them how they’ll be alright.

She thinks ‘maybe this is growing up.’ She thinks ‘maybe he was right but it was still bullshit.’ She thinks ‘maybe he was wrong but he did his best, didn’t he?’

She thinks maybe his best was enough, and her best was enough. She thinks next thanksgiving she’s putting her foot down and they’re having a real meal in the warmth of their home. She thinks maybe the family tradition of hunting down the turkey can stay, though.


	2. part 2

First seeing Stanley Pines again goes something like this:

Stanley Pines, answering the door. Stanley Pines, looking down at him with clouded eyes. Stanley Pines opening his mouth.

“You’re-“ 

There’s that beat, that blank look that Fiddleford knows, he _knows_ it because it’s somewhere rattling around his head. There’s cowls and voices and confused looking people who become blank looking people and they smile at him, they smile like they’re happy, like they’re empty, and he feels happy, he feels empty and maybe some part of him underneath the whirl of the portal and the horrorhorrorhorror is screaming what have you done, what have you done, what have you done-

“Uh… Fiddlesticks? Something like that?”

Stanley Pines (he always knew something was off, always knew, something too deeply ingrained that even the memory gun couldn’t wipe it out) just looks sheepish at the door, dressed like he wasn’t expecting anyone, like he’s just trying to be comfortable. The apocalypse was over, over for a couple of days now, and Fiddleford was here because- why was he here? He was here because-

“I reckon that’s as close as any!” He chirps, and Stanley Pines looks relieved, looks a little blank and god, the people in the chairs, looking confused. The people in the chairs, looking scared. The people looking blank. The blank people.

“Whoa there buddy, you don’t look so good.” Stan’s got a hand on his shoulder, Stanley Pines, face etched in confused, distant concern. “Look uh… you need something? Like, I dunno, a water? Anything else will cost ya.”

The last bit makes Stanley Pines pause, makes him assess, like he didn’t understand it, like he didn’t understand what made him _him_ “Heh, truth is my head’s full of holes lately.” Stanley Pines says. “We met, right? Feels like we did I- I think.”

The hand on Fiddleford’s shoulder is large, whole, normal. He used to think it was a little funny how long it took for him to realize Stanford’s hands were different. Stanford was an expert at hiding them. He used to think it was a little sad how long it took for him to realize Stanford’s hands were different. 

“'Salright, really. My head _is_ a hole.” Fiddleford tries, brightly, another chirp, loudly because he thinks maybe he lost the bit of his brain that had dignity. He thinks maybe he lost that on the other side. He doesn’t want to remember. He still doesn’t.

Stanley Pines laughs, uncomfortable, the laugh of someone who didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t the laugh of the town’s conman, of the man who shooed Fiddleford off his property like he was a wild animal, of the man who came to him in a sweaty, old hoodie and two days off sleep begging him for help, it’s Stanford, oh god you’re mentioned in his journal please something went wrong please you have to help me I don’t know what to do, I’m not a scientist I’m just a god damned idiot help me please help me.

“Right, yeah, uh- maybe I should go get Ford.” Stanley Pines was inching away. Why was Fiddleford here? “He’s got things under control. Real smart guy, that one. I’m not a big help these days.” Why was he here?

Fiddleford grabs his wrist as Stanley pulls away. “N-no, nah, ya don’t need to. I just- I gotta little delivery for him. Could you give him this?”

He scrambles for his pockets, releasing Stanley, pulling out smudged, dirty, crumpled papers and shoving them in Stanley’s hands. “Just some notes, some eh- some things I scrapped out of the ol’ noggin here, about my old… my invention. Thought it might help.”

“Oh, uh, thanks?” Stanley offers him, trying to make sense of the insane doodles and rambling and chicken scratch written on old papers and fliers and napkins. The old conman wouldn’t have touched the mess for more than a few seconds. This one, this blank man just held them like he could take Fiddleford’s word. “I guess.”

“No problem, no sir!” He watches Stanley pull back, pull away. He wants to apologize and he isn’t sure why.


	3. part 3

His legs feel like jelly for days, like every step is a wobble he can’t hide. It’s Ghost Eyes who notices first, who picks him up and perches him on his shoulder and puts up with Gideon’s cranky outrage until it exhausts itself into sleepy compliance. No one in the town says a thing about them being out, about how Gideon’s home is now full of hardened criminals helping his mother clear up the dust and debris, giving his nervous father a hand with upturned cars and lost profits. Gideon plans for bunkbeds, then an art room, then a secret hollowed out nook in the basement to hide the things they need that his parents shouldn’t know.

He sleeps and he dreams about dancing. He dances with Mabel, he dances on metal, he _hates_ dancing.

He sleeps and he dreams about holding hands, about feeling a strange burst of relief at seeing his father’s face, about feeling a stronger burst of relief when Ghost Eyes finds him again and cheers.

He sleeps and he dreams about tap tap tap on newspapers. He dreams about laughter bouncing off the unnatural walls. He dreams about distant screaming smothering the tap tap tap, just screaming and screaming and _screaming_ that doesn’t end. He dreams about the silence between the screaming, about choked words that are worse than screaming. He dreams about wanting to sleep.

He dreams about taking his star with it’s large, knowing eye and smashing it. He wakes up and takes the star with it’s wide, laughing eye and smashes it. Ghost Eyes smashes it and doesn’t ask. They get ice-cream and Gideon tells him he doesn’t know how to be a real kid, not so much anymore. Ghost Eyes’s ice-cream melts too fast and he says that he’s not sure if anyone really does.

There’s a chance the town would come for him, he thinks about it a lot. They were the bad guys until they were the good guys, he was going to help save the day until Stanford Stanley _Stan_ Pines broke the circle and suddenly Gideon was nothing but cloth and horror. The town could come for him, for them, him and his friends, throw them back in a new jail and make him _dance_ and Gideon, he thinks about what to do when that happens. He thinks about crushing things under his thumb. He thinks about laughing as he does it but then the laughter always sounds too sharp, always has screaming in the background, always makes his throat lurch.

No one comes for them. Never mind all that, they say.

The walk from the car to the party makes his legs tired. Ghost Eyes and company hover protectively behind him, even as they mingle, even as they devour mini cupcakes and play party games and make some chubby little boy Gideon didn’t remember the name of cry when they’re sore losers. Mabel doesn’t look happy to see him, Dipper doesn’t look like he knows what to think, Stan Pines looks like he knows he should be displeased but part of him can’t place why. He says hello to all of them and avoids the last Pines.

Mabel says: “Oh, Gideon… hey. You’re here. That’ssss just great.”

Gideon remembers the smell of her hair and smiles, full of charm. I’d never miss anything celebratin’ you, Mabel.

Dipper is later, privately he says: “Look Gideon, I wanted to thank you again. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have had much of a chance of saving Mabel.” He’s glancing away, down, all goodwill and Gideon remembers why he hates him. “I’m uh… I’m sorry what Bill did. It must have been rough.”

Gideon remembers exhaustion horror screaming and he laughs, waves a hand. Don’t mention it, all in a day’s work for an upstanding citizen. 

Stan doesn’t say much and Gideon is glad, glad for the chance to avoid him, glad for the chance to keep himself from slipping and saying Stanford and confusing them all more. Glad he doesn’t have to pretend he’s glad Stan’s okay when no part of him ever would be.

He walks the grounds, thinks of the last time he did. He thinks about the journal, _his_ journal, about the wonder of it that first moment he found it, of the nights spent reading and learning and barely understanding. He thinks about laughing at a stupid joke the author wrote, he thinks about laughing at the thought of summoning blood rain to pour down a certain bully's back, laughing about where that blood even came from, laughing about the horror that would be on the kid's face.

He remembers Bill’s shrill laughter between the screaming, Bill floating close to the last Pines suspended in the air, letting him fall with a dull thud. He remembers Bill was so happy, _gleeful,_ as he described the journal’s fate, how he burned years and years of work, of how the man could have it all back if you _just listened Sixer._ Of how the man crumpled on the floor said nothing, made no move, no sound.

There was a jolt in Gideon’s heart, he remembers it, at the news. His dance almost faltered, didn’t it? And as it did he thought about the wonder of that book, of everything it taught him, of the hours and hours and days spent with it, wondering about the town, wondering about power, wondering about the man who wrote it. 

He thought about how much he hated the book then, how it brought him here. 

He thought about the small part of him, some small, childish part of him dreamed that the author could save everyone, if he’d just come back. 

He thought about screaming, about the man hoisted back into the air like a doll, a man who looked like Stanford Pines. 

He thought about how there was no escape, no hope. 

He danced.

At the party he watches the author, wondering who he really was, about where he was all this time, about how cliche some secret sibling was, about how on earth the man was still up and moving and smiling after all that screaming, about if he remembered the laughter and screams and tap tap tap the way Gideon did every night. He wonders why his coat is torn and old, why he wears a sweater in late August heat, why he’s okay with giving up this home to some buffoon in a shoddy green shirt, what he knows about Bill, what did Bill want, why did Bill want it, why why why didn’t he give in.

When their eyes lock he wants to run. 

Stanford Pines says: “You’re Gideon Gleeful, aren’t you?”

Gideon remembers- he remembers screaming and robots and his robot and punches and Dipper and god, he smiles like he always does. No, he smiles sharp.

“In the flesh!” 

The author stares at him and Gideon thinks don’t look at me, don’t judge me, your family got in my way, you don’t scare me, I’ve seen you in that pyramid I've seen you as nothing but weakness and screaming and _screaming_ and, and don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t mean to do anything so wrong, it’s over so why talk about it, don’t look at me like that, don’t look.

“What you did-“ The author starts, and Gideon freezes, clenches his fists, feels his tired muscles tense. “-Dipper told me. To defy Bill in such a way, it was very brave.”

Gideon feels himself deflate, imagines that’s what it must look like, just hot air screeching out until there’s nothing left of him but his exhaustion. His tongue is tied. His tongue is never tied. He’s so tired.

“A fat lot of good it did me.” Gideon says, wants to say more, wants to scream at this man to remember he was there, he saw it all, they saw it all. There’s a look in Stanford Pines’s eyes that says he knows, Gideon thinks at least, wants to think at least, as the man’s strange six fingered hand reached out to touch his shoulder. 

“Thank you.” The author says, and Gideon swallows. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a bustle after that, they don’t say anything else after that and Gideon’s glad for it, glad for now. Ghost Eyes picks him up when his eyes start to feel heavy, they talk about how Mabel would definitely forgive him, did you see the way she kept looking over? He thinks about being called brave. He falls asleep that night and dreams of screaming.


End file.
